Wonderland
by Dark Flamingo
Summary: It's more complicated than that. It's understanding why we raise our lighters to songs like that, and why silly, pointless memories matter so much. It's about not wanting to live in wonderland, cause you're already there.


I recently remembered this story, it's been hiding away since August I think, and I've been meaning to post it for a while. So, here it is.

Note: This is more of a collection of _really _short stories, from Sora's point of view, and quite obviously, AU. It's read in order of years, from about eight years old to, about sixteen. Really, you can think of the first two stories as flashbacks. Feel free to be generally put out about spelling mistakes and complain about them to me.

**Warning**: Mild signs of homosexuality, extensive corny-ness, much too much Beatles, and lack of plotline. Enjoy.

* * *

There is a sharp blot of red on the toe of my otherwise blue and white sneaker. A splintering paintbrush rests in one of my clutching fists. Peels of laughter dances around my ears, nearby I see another pair of shoes. They are brilliant green and blue Nikes.

I follow the shoes upwards, past baggy blue kapris and the yellow sleeveless to the adorable face of nine-year old Riku. 

His hair is the same as it will be seven years from now, it is timeless, and he won't let anyone touch it with scissors or brushes after his ninth birthday, when he is fifteen, there will still be remnants of that bite of gum that Kairi will stick in it when they are arguing over the Nintendo game one of them lent to the other and never returned.

His eyes aren't nearly as timeless as his hair, they hold the same maturity as they always will, but now they shine with childish joy, his mouth open with laughter, identical to the laugh that comes from me in short bursts.

It takes a moment for me to remember why I feel so unconditionally happy, and it comes back along with the sharp blasting opening notes of another Ars Arcanum song, and I take in the paint splattered easels and dotted floor.

I don't really understand why Riku likes Arcanum so much, I don't really get the alternative rock thing at age eight, but Riku, always three years ahead of his age, loves it, and I have to admit, it is the perfect music for painting.

I slosh another brush of paint across the white sheet in front of me, I use a velvety purple and it mixes in with a streak of orange, dribbles of brown races down from the streak. We're laughing for no real reason, only that this is the most fun we've had in a long time, the music is pounding into our heads and the laughing just fits in with the scene.

I'm eight, having the time of my life.

The song ends with a loud wailing guitar and smashing cymbals and in the momentary silence, while we gasp for breath, there is the screeching bleep of the oven timer and with another glance and grin Riku rushes out of his door and disappears behind a stack of cardboard boxes.

I follow a beat behind, and slower, pausing to look at Riku's painting, it's something of a masterpiece to my young eyes, the lines of paint coming close to pictures and stopping short, to flow off in another direction, I guessed he was following the music.

Another irritated bleep hurries me on, and I race through the maze of packing boxes that litter the hallway, Riku has moved to our town less than four weeks ago, but we've already bonded extremely close

His house is still in the middle of messy confusion as everyone tries to get at their things at the same time, Riku is two steps ahead of his three brothers and has already unpacked all his things, in later years we'll all learn that Riku is always two steps ahead after many months of trying to get ahead of him.

I race into the kitchen, skipping out of the reach of a tower of boxes filled with dishes and utensils, Riku is half in a box, scrambling for oven mitts. At the small four-person table Kadaj is watching with disinterested eyes.

Riku returns with a miss-matched pair of mitts as I yank open the oven door, the heavy aroma of melting chocolate washing over my face. I take one mitt from Riku and together we reach in for the cookies.

With a yelp Riku jumps, sending the hot pan towards me and I spin and drop it on the counter, flattening an IKEA catalogue. I turn to Riku, who has one wrist under the tap, and grimaced apologetically at me.

There will be a burn mark on his left wrist for the next three months; it'll look slightly like a spatula, or comma mark, depending on how you look at it.

After prying the cookies off the cookie sheet with a knife and spearing seven on fondue forks and arranging them in a vase like flowers we left for Riku's bedroom, with a small pile of cookies in our arms, giggling madly high on cookie fumes. 

* * *

I jump into the water; rewarded with a mighty splash erupting over my head while I'm underwater I open my eyes to the fuzzy green gloom of the lake, tendrils of seaweed waving a few feet below, quivering daylight above.

A little ways ahead of me, a blurry patch of pink dances in the motions of swimming, I drag and push myself towards it and grasp out towards it and let my fingers drift over it, the leg thrashes and I clamp my fist around the ankle, a distant shriek comes to life above me and I push for the surface to avoid being hit by the leg.

I break the surface of the lake and take a gasp of air, my eyes stinging with water and still blurred I tread backwards and rub at my eyes with one hand, grinning at Kairi, who glowers at me.

"Not funny," She grumbles. But it is and I laugh until a squirt of water hits me in the face and I nearly choke. I look towards the raft where Kairi's older brother Reno stands, still dripping wet, with a water gun. He squirts me again as I wipe water off my face then laughs.

Reno has the strangest laugh I'll ever hear, sort of a chuckling sound that dies quickly, I don't think I've hear him laugh any other way and it's sort of depressing, I wonder if he's ever truly laughed until his sides ache and he has to bend over to gasp for breath.

Kairi splashes him and he skips out of range, pumping the water gun quickly and shooting a blast at his sister, who ducks beneath the hesitant waves for security, and the water hits me square in the forehead instead.

Behind me someone else laughs and I grumble and splash him. Its summer, and Kairi's parents decided that they would rent a cottage for a week, of course there are beaches everywhere you look at home, but there's something special about traveling to the mainland and swimming in water that's so murky and green and muddy.

Kairi begged for me to come, since Riku's away at a summer art school, and Wakka and Tidus have a water polo tournament on the weekend, and Selphie drives Kairi's parents insane, I really was the only option.

Kairi's parents agreed slightly hesitantly to let me come along, later I'll learn that this was because they thought I was gay, so I poised no threat to Kairi.

"Hey Sora, what's wrong? Got some seaweed stuck in your pants?" Axel has a sort of strange voice, in the tone he speaks, and maybe even his speech patterns. It always sounds as if he's on the verge of a declaration of love, which can get irritating after a while.

It's sometime past or before lunch, and Kairi and I are stuck in the lake, Reno blocking off the raft and Axel guarding the dock, ensuring that we were stuck in the cold water so they could blast us with more water. It was a war for dry land.

Kairi squeals as she breaks the surface and is attacked by vicious splashing coming from Axel, we both swim our fastest to the raft, taking the attacks with tightly shut eyes and turned heads.

In a minute the water gun is out of ammunition and Reno curses at his usual volume—loud. Kairi jumps for the ladder and I follow, by the time I'm up on the deck Kairi has already tackled Reno and the two of them are tickling one another viciously, the bright plastic gun lying forgotten on the other side of the raft.

I sprint the two paces towards them and dive for Reno's feet, and collide with his shins, sweeping his feet out from under him. The siblings fall with a muted thump and roll around, pinching and tickling, trying to push the other off.

Reno succeeds in pushing Kairi into the lake, but she keeps her tight hold on his arm and I push him in with my foot. They have a brief water-wrestling match that ends when Kairi kicks Reno in the stomach and he crumples.

Kairi scrambles onto the raft and bends to splash her brother with tsunami waves until he swims back to the dock and climbs up with Axel, who had been laughing uproariously the past minute.

We're both on the raft now, and Kairi is almost an entire inch taller than me, even including my hair that sticks out everywhere in sharp triangles. We're ten, and Reno is fourteen, in a few short years he'll move out and Kairi won't hear from him anymore.

Reno's usually spiked hair is sagging and he yells some swear words at us, but I can tell he's mostly joking, since he's grinning madly and yanking on Axel's long mane of hair to get him to shut up.

Kairi sticks her tongue out at the two while I re-fill the water gun, grinning evilly across the small stretch of water at the two redheads. Axel is still giggling but is calming down with a few last grins directed at Reno.

Axel is strange, I'll never know if he's Kairi's brother or not, since both her parents have no siblings, he couldn't be a cousin, and I never see him around Kairi's house, only on the odd occasion when he's hanging out with Reno, and I can count on one hand how many times that has, and will, happen.

But whenever their family goes on vacation Axel goes along, when Reno moves away Axel will stick around for a while, slowing fading out after half a year; he'll stop going on vacation with Kairi's family.

I shoot a thin line of water out to the two older boys who jump away and return fire in the form of splashes and water balloons.

We're all laughing and giggling insanely, making a lot of noise that carries over the water and the neighbors must be getting pissed, but I don't care, and doesn't bother anyone else. We're having a great time, what else really matters?

* * *

I resettle my position on the saggy red couch, trying not to roll into Selphie, who's eying a guy wearing a cowboy hat on the other side of the café.

"No, I think _One_ is more rock, there's hardly is any pop in it," Demyx counters Riku, leaning forwards slightly, excited for the conversation topic.

Riku shakes his head, his long silvery blonde hair swishing with the movement, his hair is shiny clean, even if he has no intention of ever cutting it; cleanliness is a completely different matter.

"No, it's not about it being_entirely_ pop, it's about the implications, there's a popish feel to the whole record," He explains carefully, his hand shuffling slightly through the air as he speaks.

Hayner breaks a chunk off his Hershey's bar, it's one of the old ones that spells _Hershey_ three times across, you can buy them down at the old candy store, where everything still is five or ten cents, Hayner passes me the chunk, and I break it in half and give part to Selphie, and then another piece down to Pence on the other end of the sofa.

I look at my piece while Demyx and Riku continue their debate, now questioning Olette on her thoughts. My bit of chocolate is the line of E's, and a bit of the R's and a corner of an S.

I nibble on the bit of S and lean back, sinking another two inches in the sofa. I cross my legs without toppling over to one side entirely, and bob one foot along with the song. To my left Kairi is sitting on one of the massive armchairs next to Namine who's curled up and whispering the lines to the song while Kairi tosses some gummi worms across our small circle to Axel, who's trying to catch them in his mouth.

Everyone is here, or at least everyone part of the Circle, and we're having a party, although no one else can tell.

We've been having these 'parties' for four months now, we have them inside Advent, a smallish café and book/record store somewhere near the heart of town, to me this _is_ the heart of our town.

We call our parties whenever deemed necessary, or more commonly when the sun's starting to sink and Cloud closes down the store and we get him to spin some old Beatles records and buy some ten cent candy from down the street, and cappuccinos off Cloud and settle in our corner in a rag-tag circle. Today is one of those days.

"Hey Reno!" Demyx calls past Riku to the redhead, who's sprawled out on one of the sofas, Axel wedged firmly in-between his thighs, still trying to catch the gummi worms flying his way, and the couch is littered with his efforts.

"Yeah?" Reno replies, the word drawn out, Reno's tired, and it's his last Thursday with us, although none of us know it now.

"What do you think? Pop, or rock?" 

"Honestly I have no idea what you're talking about,"

Hayner chortles at the putout expression on Demyx's face, or it could be from Reno's blunt denial, I can't really tell.

While Demyx tries to explain their debate to Reno, who has no desire for this knowledge, Kairi tosses the whole bag of gummies over at Axel and settles back in the armchair, leaning lightly on Namine's shoulder. She joins Namine in singing _Penny Lane_, after ignoring _Yellow Submarine _and_Eleanor Rigby_ pointedly.

Kairi doesn't bother to learn the lyrics to popular songs; she strives instead to learn the less-known song lines, because she can pick up the lines for more famous songs whenever they are played.

Riku and Demyx let their argument drop finally, after agreeing to disagree, their debates always end this way, mostly because they're both right, so there's no way to prove the other wrong. They would probably make great politicians, if only their debates weren't just about music.

Demyx turns to Zexion, who's sitting on the ground in front of him, and leaning back against Demyx's shins. I hear him ask Zexion quietly who he thought was right. Zexion pretends to think about this, I know he's pretending because Zexion's favorite band is _Nobody_, an angsty type of music, and doesn't listen to much else, proof is in the fact that an earphone has been inserted into his left ear.

I can also tell Zexion's faking it since he's going to agree with Demyx, and does after his moment of thought, with a nod and hushed words that I can't hear, Zexion has a medical issue with his voice box, and his voice can never get as loud as the volume most people speak at. At first we said this as a joke until we realized this was true, and that Zexion will go through life speaking in whispers.

Demyx beams happily and Zexion's pale face glows as he basks in Demyx's happiness. Zexion is one of the only gays I really know personally, except for Riku. Of course there's Cloud and Leon, but I think that's just a rumor.

We're all comfortable with Zexion and his love for Demyx, even Demyx himself. From the minute Zexion met Demyx he was in love. And for almost as long Demyx has known this, but he's straight, so there's one love that'll go unrequited. Although the fact that Demyx hasn't dated since could mean something.

Riku's gayness is something no one could really notice; he never dates or gets any crushes, or even stares at guys. He claims to be waiting for the One, and I think only Zexion could understand this.

Demyx leans back in his armchair, one that's noticeably smaller than Kairi's, otherwise Zexion would be sitting next to him, and takes a deep gulp of his mocha before shifting his position and parting his knees, giving his coffee to Zexion who sips it delicately and replaces it on the small table that separates Demyx's chair from Riku and Olette's couch.

I catch Kairi's eye, she had noticed this as well, and she smiles brilliantly, giving me a small thumb's-up. Demyx chants loudly along with the opening line of _All You Need Is Love_, filling the absence of Kairi's voice.

Selphie, Axel and Olette sing the rest of the song, picking up just as Demyx stops, while Pence and Hayner talk about the betting pool Yuna, Rikku and Paine run. I tune in just to learn what the bets are on this week.

"Well, I heard the odds are seven to one," Pence countered whatever Hayner has said before; Hayner shook his head.

"No, just before seventh period they were raised to _eight _to one,"

"No _way_,"

"Yeah, looks like everyone's against Aladdin,"

I tune them out again, the pool has been on for three days, and the odds have been raised high and higher against Aladdin and Jasmine getting back together after the messy break-up that had taken place on Friday.

We shift back into murmuring conversations and Olette watches Selphie suspiciously as the girl bounces over to the cowboy earnestly. Riku tugs Olette back into sitting down and continues to braid her hair while Olette yanks out her cell-phone and punches a text message to Selphie, evident when a cheery chirp sings out from the other girl's hip.

The message probably forbid Selphie to invite the cowboy over, no one else is allowed to enter the Circle. The Circle is sacred, only loves could join, and this is after two weeks of lunch and hang out's with smaller portions of our Circle.

The last to join has been Roxas, and he had been treated like a scientific experiment, everyone waiting for him to explode so he could be kicked out. Fortunately, he hadn't and was allowed to stay.

But today he isn't present for the party, I had been the one to invite him in, during the three-week fling-like thing we had had. It had been confusing, I didn't know if I liked him, disliked him loved him, or loved him as a dear friend or brother.

It then end and had been messy and even more confusing, he hadn't been rejected from the Circle because he understood it, the sacredness, and even more, respected it. As well he had become good friends with Hayner, Pence, Olette, Axel and Namine.

I still thought of him as a friend, but he claimed this was too confusing and awkward for him, so he wouldn't be around for a couple weeks, until he sorted things out.

_The Ballad Of John And Yoko _starts to play and Reno pulls out his lighter, and holds it above his head, waving his arm back and forth slowly. Olette lifts her cell-phone, the screen brightly lit, so does Kairi and Pence.

Cloud respectfully dims the lights, (sometimes I think he understands us better than we understand ourselves) as Demyx, Riku, and Hayner flick their lighters to life and wave the flame in the air I flip open my cell-phone just as Selphie crashes next to me and lifts her own.

We sway to a tune that doesn't exist in this upbeat song, I don't know if Reno had lit his lighter in response to the death of John, or the death of the Beatles, hell he could've done this just to entice Axel with the flame (if so it was working brilliantly).

Maybe it was because he knew he would be out of town by Saturday, and was paying his last respects to the Beatles with this group mourning. I don't know, I never have figured it out.

Beside Kairi Namine is sniffling silently; Kairi has one arm around her shoulder and is whispering something to her while the blonde nods. Zexion's leaning back against Demyx's chair, his head in between Demyx's knees, his eyes closed. He's mouthing along to the lyrics, or even singing them but I can't hear.

Riku and Olette are singing softly along, Olette running one hand through her hair to de-braid it. Selphie has stopped ogling the cowboy to pay her respects to the Circle and The Beatles, on her cell-phone's screen there's a picture of Roxas.

The song ends and we shut off our lighters and cell-phones and sit in comfortable silence while_Something_ plays. Cloud raises the lights with a nod towards us, the three other customers stare at us oddly, aside from the cowboy, I think he gets it.

As _Come Together_ starts to play we start talking animatedly again, Namine is laughing loudly, not something that happens often, at something that Axel has done or Kairi has said, Advent is empty but for us, Cloud and the cowboy, who's just throwing out his cup.

Pence and I begin a conversation about plywood, something neither of us know much about, but that's the fun in it, and Selphie gets up to bid the cowboy goodbye. We all pass some more candy around, and I eat a row of Y's that Hayner gives me.

When this album is over, Cloud puts on Please Please Me; I only know this because Namine and Demyx shout it out for Cloud to play. Within the first five seconds of _I Saw Her Standing There_ we're all on our feet, dancing and dancing.

It doesn't matter that I can't dance, or that none of us can, but when it comes to true dancing, it doesn't matter what you look like, it's the joy you feel. And I feel joyous.

We're bouncing and spinning, Reno has been dragged out of his sleepy stupor and is spinning with Axel, while Hayner and Namine tango. Selphie, Pence and Demyx have formed a circle and are skipping around Zexion, who always hesitates when we dance.

I'm lost in this movement, I'm floating in our swarm of grooving and giggling; I'm three notes in the middle of a song. And I'm in the middle of a strange dance with Kairi when I look up and see Roxas in the doorway, and I understand the meaning behind Roxas's picture on Selphie's phone.

She had called him, and held up the phone so he could hear the song — she had told him to come without actually saying the words.

"Go get him," Kairi hisses in my ear but I shake my head, my hair pushing her back from my ear.

"I can't. I'm not brave enough," I mutter back. She gives me an impatient look, reaches past me and pulls Axel away from Reno, who whines slightly, and plucks Namine out of our convulsing mass of bodies, and drags all three of us towards Roxas, who looks both ecstatic and terrified at our approach.

We start to dance with him over by the doorway, and soon we've got him grooving, we drag our dancing feet over to the rest of the Circle as Cloud skips to _Baby It's You_.

It's not really a dancing song but we continue on, singing _cha la la la la la laa_ along in unison. Then Cloud puts on the _Help!_ record and I skip over to where he stands behind the wooden counter, Riku on one arm, Reno on the other.

Together the three of us lift Cloud onto our shoulder and prance back to our corner, Cloud cursing as he dodges the low-hanging lights. Cloud is part of the Circle, and he deserves to be treated like it.

It took almost as much effort as it takes to get Zexion to dance to get Cloud to budge, but by the end of_I Need You_ he was dancing like and with the rest of us.

We grooved the whole album away, it was crazy, we had a four-man kick line at some point, and me and Roxas did a strange ballet in which we apologized in general, finishing off with a kiss. Not a romantic kiss, it didn't really mean anything, and it didn't entirely mean nothing; it was just a kiss.

Selphie got most of us to do the chicken dance at another point in the night, and during _Act Naturally_ we had to untangle Reno and Axel under the pleads of Riku who said it was getting hard to watch. This probably was one of the few times he interrupted our dancing.

Just after Roxas and Pence led a half-serious interpretive dance to_ You Like Me Too Much_ I sit down on Kairi's armchair for a breather and spot Demyx and Zexion on the edges of our group, they're both dancing with the same enthusiasm as everyone else, which is a good step forward for Zexion, then Demyx leans over and places a kiss on Zexion's cheek.

I grin broadly as Zexion's craftily hidden ears flush and his face glows, a warm smile stretching across his face.

That night, on Thursday I think was a sort of turning point for some of us, a plain wonderful night for the rest, which is exactly what Reno's last Thursday deserved to be; the whole Circle, together dancing until our feet hurt, and then dancing some more.

* * *

Oh gosh that was long. It was longer, but I hacked off the last story cause it pissed me off. Anyways, please leave a review, even if you especially loathe The Beatles. 


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